AFRICAN IN BLOOMBERG 50: UPDATE

An update to our report that Nigerian billionaire, Aliko Dangote is the only African on the Bloomberg 50 list of this year’s most influential people;

A photo of Aliko Dangote was displayed, yesterday, on the Nasdaq Tower in Times Square, New York. The NASDAQ Tower is considered the most visible LED video display in Times Square and is one of the most valuable advertising spaces in the world. It’s the largest continuous sign in Times Square. It has close to 9,000 square feet of display space — about a quarter of an acre.

“Dubbed ‘the quiet billionaire’ for his relatively frugal lifestyle, Dangote fast-tracked plans to help his country of 180 million people import less of what it eats. Dangote, who made his fortune in the cement industry, is turning his attention to dairy and sugar farming; he’s earmarked $800 million to buy 50,000 cattle in the hope of producing 500 million liters of milk annually by 2019. He’s also racing to finish a 650,000-barrel-a-day oil refinery near Lagos, set to be one of the world’s biggest, and says he intends to spend as much as $50 billion in the next decade on renewable energy and petrochemical refineries, including investments in the U.S. and Europe. Which is all fine, but not quite his grand ambition: buying Arsenal, his favorite soccer team.”

It is said that Dangote and his companies represent the imperative of African industrialization, pan-African development and emancipation from dependance.

With a net worth of $14.6 billion dollars according to Forbes Magazine, Aliko Dangote was honored, earlier this week, at the Bloomberg 50 annual gala dinner at New York City’s iconic Gotham Hall. The Nigerian is one of Bloomberg’s list of 50 most influential names who have had an impact on the world in 2017.

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